


embers

by mortalitasi



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, General, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 02:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14843480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: It's often said that fire is one of the pillars of life.No one truly pays credence to its other side until they have beenburned.





	embers

**Author's Note:**

> i appreciate how real and visceral the portrayal of Caleb's ptsd is. without getting too detailed: it's not pretty, and knowing that people still love Caleb as a character regardless gives me hope that i wouldn't be completely devalued by others if and when i decided to open up, either.
> 
> thank you---and i'm sorry for filling in the gaps. overactive imagination is kind of a curse of mine.

Human skin melts like wax in a fire.

The higher the temperature rises, the more distorted and blurred the tissue becomes. After the first five minutes or so, give or take, the body splits like an overstuffed sack, and then the blaze burns as long as it takes to use up all the fat you have to offer. Muscles dry and twitch. Your capillaries flood your skin with blood, trying in vain to extinguish the flames, but all that does is rob you of precious fluids you need to survive. Everything that makes you human sloughs away in the relentless heat.

Fire is a greedy thing, consuming whatever it's given until there's nothing left, like a glutton at a feast. It eats and eats, leaving behind only papery ash and ebony smoke.

Nothing is the same after the inferno passes. One sifts through the remains and wonders: _were they even human, once? They look like monsters now._ It's true. There they lie, twisted and silent and always screaming, specters or wraiths, clawed carbon hands and gaping jaws. They have no hair, no eyes, nor voices with which to speak. There is only the whisper of the wind between the half-destroyed rafters, whistling through the skeleton of what used to be a house.

Who would feel guilty for killing a monster?

He was sure he wouldn't.

“ _Mein Schatz_ ,” she had said, last time she’d seen him, patting his shoulders with slender, work-hardened hands. He can still remember the smell of her, linen and lilacs. “I am so proud of you.”

She couldn't have felt that way, not in the end.

  


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They had been too poor for coal when he was a child.

Mother would pick the kindling carefully from the bundles Father brought home, drying them with consummate care, rationing them to make sure they would last through the cool northern nights. Winters were difficult. There was never enough warmth. He would huddle under his threadbare blankets, shivering through the night, wishing for a bath, wishing for cushions, for company, wishing to be someone, anyone else.

The flickering light of the fire in the hearth was all the light they could go by at night. Candles were costly. Trying to buy them from people who didn’t like you was even costlier. There’s something strange about growing up destitute—it’s you and yours that are suffering the most, but others act like the condition is catching, like you’re diseased.

He used to sleep curled up as close to the fireplace as he could tolerate, shutting his eyes, promising himself that one day, Mother and Father would not have to share their food with him, and that Mother would be able to buy all the sewing supplies she needed, and that Father would not need to work when his back was aching and the dry skin of his hands was cracking. He would provide for them, repay them for everything they’ve done, and they would never have to worry about food or water or frost ever again.

  


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From the very beginning, he is a curious boy.

He asks questions his parents cannot answer, and not for lack of wanting. He is gifted, they say. Intelligent, clear-minded, so precocious for a boy his age. Still, he has his days.

Mother wipes a smear of mud from his cheek with a damp square of cloth, sighing when he averts his gaze.

“It’s alright, Caleb,” she says softly, running her fingers through the wave of his auburn hair. “Papa was just worried about you. We thought you might get hurt.”

“I wasn’t going to _fall_ ,” he insists, looking at her again. People always tell him he’s the spitting image of her, blue, blue irises and welcoming face, though in character he’s more of a match for his father. _You have your mother’s eyes, but your father’s temper,_ neighbors say. He doesn’t agree. Knowing what you want and how to get it is not anger—it’s being driven. Father says the things others do not wish to hear. It is not wrong. “I was just trying to see if I was right.”

She sighs again, scrubbing a palm across her face. She sets the cloth down in favor of cupping his cheeks—he can feel the rasp of her calluses against his chin and jaw. “You are going to be the death of me one day, _Schatzi,_ ” she says, swiping her thumbs under his eyes, like she is brushing away tears. “I wish you cared for yourself more.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, unable to bear the full weight of her worry.

She presses a kiss to his forehead. “It’s done. Come—help me with dinner.”

  


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He is sitting up against the trunk of the largest tree in the vicinity, journal balanced on his knees, scribbling away like his life depends on it.

He does not pay attention as Fjord goes about building a proper fire pit as night falls, and only pauses for a moment when the first spark catches: hiss, spit, a jump of orange, and the kindling is suddenly alight, tongues of flame whipping in the breeze. By now, repressing the physical reaction is almost second nature. His legs tense, but he keeps his face down. He can see the growing glow of the campfire out of the very top of his peripheral vision, feel its touch across his boots, even through the thick and ragged fabric of his pants.

“Hey, hey,” says a voice to his left, and he peeks through the fringe of his hair at the one addressing him. Beauregard looks perfectly at home sitting cross-legged on the churned soil of the plains, languid and lounging, not unlike a certain cat in his acquaintance. She jiggles a flask in his direction, letting him hear the slosh of liquid inside. Her skin is like burnished copper in the firelight; her eyes follow him with a predatory alertness he’s concluded is her odd way of showing concern. “Want some? It’s _sort_ of the good stuff. Might help with that… sleepin’ situation you got going on.”

“Thank you, Beau, but no,” he replies, returning his attention to the journal. “I will be fine.”

She shrugs, smirking at him. “Whatever turns the pages of your grimoire, man.”

She leaves him to his own devices after, shifting across camp to sit on a log by Yasha, who is cleaning her blade with a quiet studiousness that clearly betrays she is ignoring reality as a whole. He has to admit—Beau is persistent. Perhaps she doesn’t know how to be anything else. It’s almost admirable. She also gives him his space. That is appreciated.

He returns to his spell theory, moving only to lean forward slightly when Frumpkin climbs his arm to settle around his neck like a furred boa. The familiar’s purring vibrates through his nape, all the way down to his shoulders and arms.

“Good boy,” he murmurs absentmindedly, reaching up with an ink-stained hand to scratch Frumpkin’s ears.

The last vestiges of the day fade quickly. Soon, the dark beyond the trees is deep, and the stars in the sky begin to truly stand out. There are swaths of them visible tonight; the weather is cloudless and icy, as it often is in the north, and the crescent of the primary moon is a beacon in the heavens. Caleb writes well past midnight, sometimes stopping to wring out his cramping hand, sometimes stretching his legs.

Everyone including Nott is fast asleep by the time he’s done. Frumpkin slips from his shoulders with a drowsy meow as he puts the journal away in his travel-sack, instead becoming immediately situated in the crook of his elbow when he lies down, turning his back to the still-burning fire. He tugs his coat tight around him, pulling his scarf over his face, willing his body to relax.

The ground is freezing, and hard, but it doesn’t bother him as much as the crackling he can hear behind him.

It would take just a single, stray spark, like the one from earlier, for this entire clearing to go up in flames.

Jester does not mind the cold, and Fjord is as adept in water as he is on land—how would either of them fare against the remorseless advance of the absolute opposite?

Fire does not care if you are cruel or kind or brave or strong. It just is.

Caleb closes his eyes.

He just wants to rest.

  


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He lunges awake, gasping, trying to clear the smog from his lungs.

The front door has collapsed, withering into nothing, but the rest of the house is still standing—maybe it’s not too late, maybe he can go inside, maybe he can find them, undo this—they haven’t stopped screaming, so they must still be alive. They are screaming, and everyone around him is just _watching_ , framed in the light of the conflagration, staring at him as though it’s strange that he is weeping.

“Caleb,” Nott hisses, yanking at his arm.

He looks down at her, blinking, feeling the sweat drip down his throat and forehead. His shirt and coat are stuck to him now, clinging to his skin, and he is suddenly chilled. No, not suddenly. He had been, he just hadn’t known it.

“Caleb,” she repeats, drawing his attention. She’s correct—he is Caleb, and he remembers what had been taken from him. She rests her tiny hand on his knuckles. It always surprises him—that someone so small can have such a gigantic presence in his life. “You were having a bad dream.”

He swallows. His mouth is dry. “I was,” he agrees, glancing about the camp to see if anyone noticed.

“No one’s awake but me,” she says. She may as well be able to read his mind. “It’s early.”

And she is right—dawn hasn’t even begun to filter through the trees, though the sky is turning grey with the promise of sunrise. He can hear the soft staccato of Beau’s snoring coming from the cart.

“I should finish some things,” he says as Frumpkin walks across his lap, stopping to curl up on his legs. He’s being watched by two sets of attentive, catlike eyes, one yellow, one green.

“You can still rest some more,” Nott observes.

He shakes his head. “No,” he replies, stroking Frumpkin’s back. “I think I’m alright.”

Nott considers him for a moment, nearly pensive. “If you need anything, just call.”

“Sure.”

She makes her way back to her makeshift bedroll, all but disappearing under the blankets she’s gathered. He is thankful she cares so much. The camp is quiet, a collection of different shapes and soft sounds—the horses, tied off to an oak by the cart, are grazing contentedly, unbothered by the frosted dew on the grass. Jester mutters something in her sleep as she turns on her other side, the shaggy fall of her blue-black hair concealing most of her face from view. He sweeps the clearing with his gaze once more, and then he sees it.

The fire has burned down to a clutch of embers, pulsing amber and scarlet, peeking out from under the cinders, red as a raw wound.


End file.
